we might express some part of our zeals, we should think ourselves for ever perfect." TIM. O, no doubt, my good friends, but the gods themselves have provided that I shall have much help from you: How had you been my friends else? why have you that charitable title from thousands, did you not chiefly belong to my heart?" I have told more of you to myself, than you can with modesty speak in your own behalf; and thus far I confirm you. O, you gods, think I, what need we have any friends, if we should never have need of them? they were the most needless creatures living, should we ne'er have use for them: and would most resemble sweet instruments hung up cases, that keep their sounds to themselves. Why, in °for ever perfect.] That is, arrived at the perfection of happiness. JOHNSON. So, in Macbeth: "Then comes my fit again; I had else been perfect ; " STEEVENS. "How had you been my friends else? why have you that charitable title from thousands, did you not chiefly belong to my heart?] Charitable signifies, dear, endearing. So, Milton: "Relations dear, and all the charities "Of father, son, and brother—.” Alms, in English, are called charities, and from thence we may collect that our ancestors knew well in what the virtue of almsgiving consisted; not in the act, but in the disposition. WARBURTON. The meaning is probably this:-Why are you distinguished from thousands by that title of endearment, was there not a particular connection and intercourse of tenderness between you and me? JOHNSON. I confirm you.] I fix your characters firmly in my own mind. JOHNSON. 9 -they were the most needless creatures living, should we ne'er have use for them: and-] This passage I have restored from the old copy. STEEVENS. I have often wished myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We are born to do benefits: and what better or properer can we call our own, than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious comfort 'tis, to have so many, like brothers, commanding one another's fortunes! Ojoy, e'en made away ere it can be born! Mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks: 2 to forget their faults, I drink to you. APEM. Thou weepest to make them drink,3 Ti mon. 2 LORD. Joy had the like conception in our eyes, And, at that instant, like a babe sprung up. O joy, e'en made away ere it can be born!] Tears being the effect both of joy and grief, supplied our author with an opportunity of conceit, which he seldom fails to indulge. Timon, weeping with a kind of tender pleasure, cries out, O joy, e'en made away, destroyed, turned to tears, before it can be born, before it can be fully possessed. JOHNSON. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "These violent delights have violent ends, The old copy has-joys. It was corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. Mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks:] In the original edition the words stand thus: Mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks. To forget their faults, I drink to you. Perhaps the true reading is this: Mine eyes cannot hold out; they water. Methinks, to forget their faults, I will drink to you. Or it may be explained without any change. Mine eyes cannot hold out water, that is, cannot keep water from breaking in upon them. JOHNSON. 3 to make them drink,] Sir T. Hanmer reads-to make them drink thee; and is followed by Dr. Warburton, I think, without sufficient reason. The covert sense of Apemantus is, JOHNSON. what thou losest, they get. 4 like a babe-] That is, a weeping babe. JOHNSON. I question if Shakspeare meant the propriety of allusion to be carried quite so far. To look for babies in the eyes of another, APEM. Ho, ho! I laugh to think that babe a bastard. 3 LORD. I promise you, my lord, you mov'd me much. APEM. Much !5 [Tucket sounded. TIM. What means that trump?-How now? Enter a Servant. SERV. Please you, my lord, there are certain ladies most desirous of admittance. is no uncommon expression. Thus, among the anonymous pieces in Lord Surrey's Poems, 1557: "In eche of her two cristall eyes "Smileth a naked boye." Again, in Love's Mistress, by Heywood, 1636: 66 Joy'd in his looks, look'd babies in his eyes." Again, in The Christian turn'd Turk, 1612: " She makes him sing songs to her, looks fortunes in his fists, and babies in his eyes." Again, in Churchyard's Tragicall Discours of a dolorous Gentlewoman, 1593: "Men will not looke for babes in hollow eyen." STEEVENS. Does not Lucullus dwell on Timon's metaphor by referring to circumstances preceding the birth, and means joy was conceived in their eyes, and sprung up there, like the motion of a babe in the womb? TOLLET. The word conception, in the preceding line, shows, I think, that Mr. Tollet's interpretation of this passage is the true one. We have a similar imagery in Troilus and Cressida : 66 and, almost like the gods, "Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles." MALONE. Much!] Apemantus means to say,-That's extraordinary. Much was formerly an expression of admiration. See Vol. VIII. p. 150, n. 8. MALONE. Much! is frequently used, as here, ironically, and with some indication of contempt. STEEVENS. TIM. Ladies? What are their wills? SERV. There comes with them a forerunner, my lord, which bears that office, to signify their pleasures. TIM. I pray, let them be admitted. Enter CUPID. CUP. Hail to thee, worthy Timon;—and to all That of his bounties taste! The five best senses Acknowledge thee their patron; and come freely To gratulate thy plenteous bosom: The ear, Taste, touch, smell, all pleas'd from thy table rise;" They only now come but to feast thine eyes. "The ear, &c.] In former copies There taste, touch, all pleas'd from thy table rise, The five senses are talked of by Cupid, but three of them only are made out; and those in a very heavy unintelligible manner. It is plain therefore we should read Th' ear, taste, touch, smell, pleas'd from thy table rise, i. e. the five senses, Timon, acknowledge thee their patron; four of them, viz. the hearing, taste, touch, and smell, are all feasted at thy board; and these ladies come with me to entertain your sight in a masque. Massinger, in his Duke of Millaine, copied the passage from Shakspeare; and apparently before it was thus corrupted; where, speaking of a banquet, he says 66 All that may be had "To please the eye, the ear, taste, touch, or smell, Dr. Warburton and the subsequent editors omit the wordall; but omission is the most dangerous mode of emendation. The corrupted word-There, shows that-The ear was intended to be contracted into one syllable; and table also was probably used as taking up only the time of a monosyllable. MALONE. Perhaps the present arrangement of the foregoing words, renders monosyllabification needless. STEEVENS. TIM. They are welcome all; let them have kind admittance: Musick, make their welcome." [Exit CUPID. 1 LORD. You see, my lord, how ample you are belov'd. Musick. Re-enter CUPID, with a masque of Ladies as Amazons, with Lutes in their Hands, dancing, and playing. APEM. Hey day, what a sweep of vanity comes this way! They dance! they are mad women. Like madness is the glory of this life, "Musick, make their welcome.] Perhaps, the poet wrote: Musick, make known their welcome. So, in Macbeth: 1 "We will require her welcome, "Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends." STEEVENS. They dance!] I believe They dance to be a marginal note only; and perhaps we should read: These are mad women. TYRWHITT. They dance! they are mad women.] Shakspeare seems to have borrowed this idea from the puritanical writers of his own time. Thus in Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, 8vo. 1583: "Dauncers thought to be mad men." "And as in all feasts and pastimes dauncing is the last, so it is the extream of all other vice: And again, there were (saith Ludovicus Vives) from far countries certain men brought into our parts of the world, who when they saw men daunce, ran away marvelously affraid, crying out and thinking them to have been mad," &c. Perhaps the thought originated from the following passage from Cicero pro Murena, 6: "Nemo enim ferè saltat sobrius, nisi fortè insanit." STEEVENS. 9 Like madness is the glory of this life, As this pomp shows to a little oil, and root.] The glory of this life is very near to madness, as may be made appear from |